


Stronger Counsel

by Eidolon_writes (kenaz)



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fellowship of the Ring, M/M, One Ring to Rule Them All, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-09
Updated: 2012-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-10 03:53:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4376219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenaz/pseuds/Eidolon_writes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Rivendell, Isildur’s Bane has indeed awoken, and Boromir has begun to feel its insidious pull...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stronger Counsel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rubyelf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyelf/gifts).



> Written for Rubyelf for the 2012 sons_of_gondor Trick-or-Treat Exchange.

  
_Seek for the Sword that was broken:_  
In Imladris it dwells;  
There shall be counsels taken  
Stronger than Morgul-spells.  
There shall be shown a token  
That Doom is near at hand,  
For Isildur's Bane shall waken,  
And the Halfling forth shall stand. 

-The Fellowship of the Ring: The Council of Elrond

 

 

Perhaps the merry glow of lanterns and the pervasive scent of woodsmoke issuing in steady swirls from little chimneys across the valley evoked in Elves and Hobbits a sense of warmth and respite, but to Boromir, there was nothing homely about the Last Homely House.

He had come to Rivendell a stranger, and days later he felt a stranger still. Unaccustomed to the ways and manners of Elves, he decided that they spoke prettily but said little: he sought answers, and perhaps the aid of an ancient ally, but he had received only riddles and obfuscation for his trouble. The tide had turned against him almost immediately in Elrond’s council; he had palpably felt the rancor when he had suggested they take the Ruling Ring to Gondor. What was it, this ring, if not the greatest weapon they could wield against their mutual enemy? But the Elves had responded to his request with a nearly violent revulsion. His humiliation had been made complete when the ill-favored man in stained cloaks had named himself Isildur’s heir, and derogated Boromir’s months on the road alone as a petty jaunt undertaken by an unschooled novice.

And now he had been left alone to stew and fester in his resentment, for when Elrond had dispatched scouts to the four winds, he had denied Boromir’s request to go forth with their number. He felt the mistrust in the glances of the Elves, and it had not gone unnoticed that a sentry had been posted outside the rooms where Frodo the Halfling and his companions were housed. It seemed to Boromir that he alone was the reason for their caution, and their suspicion affronted him.

That he had found himself drawn to Frodo’s rooms again and again, sometimes in the middle of the night, compelled without reason or explanation, was something he tried very hard not to think about.

Without friends or occupation, Boromir grew restless. He chafed under the invisible restrictions, itched under Elrond’st kindness and solicitude, which seemed to have iron defenses hidden behind it. In Gondor, he was the son of the Steward, and a man with a sterling reputation for strength and honor, tried and proven in endless contest with their foes. Yet his strength and experience were nothing to the Elves of Rivendell, and his lineage meant even less. For what interest could they muster in the heir to Gondor’s stewardship when they consorted with the heir to Gondor’s throne? He had kept much to himself, for his mood was surly and he felt no great desire to ingratiate himself with those who would account him a lesser man. Faramir should had come in his stead; he knew his brother had wished it so. The mysterious dream about the waking of Isildur’s Bane had come first and often to Faramir, after all, and to himself only once. Perhaps with his scholarly mind and his facility with the Elvish tongue, Faramir might better have swayed the Council, and the Ring might even now be on its way to Gondor’s salvation.

He wished, and not for the first time, that he had taken some companionship before he had departed on this godforsaken journey. One hundred days alone on the road had been lonely and hard, no matter how the Ranger had diminished it, and who knew when-- or even if--the opportunity might arise again. Even so, it was no simple matter. There were two sorts of women, his father had long ago schooled him: those who spread their legs to make themselves wives, and those who spread their legs to make coin. He did not truck with he former-- he did not yet wish for a wife, and he was not the sort to despoil a lady for sport-- and the latter were not as easy to come by as one might imagine, not while he had a reputation to guard. A woman's discretion was more dearly bought than her quim, and while he had a few favorites who pleased him as well for their closed lips as for their open legs, there was nowt of passion or affection to it, just a momentary slaking of a transient thirst.

He did not know what customs the Elves maintained with regards to chastity--and despite his misgivings about their race, he was forced to admit that each one he saw appeared more fair than the last--but he could not in any case imagine that the Elf-maidens of Rivendell, remote as the stars above, would deign to share their beds with a mortal Man. More than once since coming here he had woken in the deeps of night surrounded by the haze of strange dreams, his shaft tenting the bedclothes, his mind bent on dark desires, with the nigh irrepressible urge to drag one of these aloof maids from their cosy beds and teach them the folly of ignoring a Man of Gondor--

\--Then the queer tide would subside and he would return to himself with the uneasy awareness that his thoughts were not entirely his own.

The sooner he was quit of Rivendell, he decided, the better.

The pristine walls and perfectly manicured gardens of Elrond’s house had closed in around him like the bars of some fine-wrought cage, and his jailers draped themselves in silk and samite when they should all have been girding themselves for war. He needed to be away from them, and from this. With nothing else to console him or settle his thoughts, Boromir took himself for a walk. On this night, he had heeded the call of the Bruinen, and walked toward a wilder place,away from the forced bonhomie of the Hall of Fire and the formality of the gardens, following an old and untended path wending down along water, through cluttered copses of leaning trees and upwards towards the high bluffs. Untended, yes, but clearly not unknown: perhaps even in this quaint valley a few still lingered who did not want or need the way before them to be ruled out in perfect paving stones! He stood alone for some time with only his thoughts until a voice startled him out of his vigil.

“Well met, Boromir, Son of Denethor.”

He had heard no one approaching. Not a breeze through the leaves, not the rattle of gravel tumbling in a footfall’s wake. The Bruinen was louder here, but not so loud that it should have dulled his hearing. Strange Elvish magics were afoot, he thought, and he liked it not.

He turned and saw that it was Legolas, the messenger from Mirkwood, though he looked less of a messenger now in the clothing he had been given by Elrond’s valets. Boromir had chosen to keep his own garb once it had been cleaned and mended; he had no wish to look like some Elven coxcomb, and he was proud of the enduring practicality of his own raiment. He returned the greeting with a nod, wondering what the Elf wished of him.

“You have kept to yourself in these days since the council.”

Boromir suppressed an irritated grunt. “I have had much on my mind. I find I have little interest in Elvish tales and songs, just as the Elves have little interest in the tales of Gondor.”

“I have an interest,” Legolas replied brightly. “I have not traveled so far to the south. I am sure there is much you could tell me of its beauty.”

Boromir regarded the Elf with faint suspicion. “Ah. You sought me out because you suddenly developed an interest in the lore of the south.”

Legolas looked slightly abashed and shook his head. “When you made yourself scarce, Aragorn wondered if perhaps you might be reconsidering your decision to travel with us.”

A wave of anger broke over him, his resentment percolating anew. “So he sends a messenger to divine my intent? If he thinks I give my word lightly, he should say so himself, not hide behind a another.”

“I sought you of my own accord,” Legolas replied evenly. “I, too, had my doubts and would know for myself whether or not you would stay the course.”

“I stand by my word,” Boromir grumbled. “If I said I shall walk with this company until our road diverges, then so I shall, and I will do all in my power to protect the ringbearer, though many here seem to think otherwise.”

“Peace, Boromir.” Legolas held up his hands in appeal. “I have no quarrel with you, nor do I think you anything less than a good man in an evil time.”

The Elf came nearer and stood close, and Boromir was hard-pressed not to look at him. His beauty drew the eye, moreso even than many women might, but Boromir was more in wonder at the smoothness of Legolas’ skin, that he looked like a youth freshly come of age. His own face was lined and weathered, showing more than the sum of his years. The Elf’s eyes fairly glittered in the dark, seeing much where Boromir saw merely shadow upon shadow. He smelled of sunshine on green meadows, and yet Boromir did not think he wore any scent, save that which that the Valar had set naturally upon the Elves, and in looking at him, it seemed to Boromir that the Valar truly loved their Firstborn children more. The unfairness of it vexed him, just as the beauty of the man stirred something sinister within him. He wished to take that beauty and break it.

Perhaps Legolas sensed his sudden turn, for he spoke again quickly. “We have a hard road to travel, Boromir, and already there is mistrust between the members of the Fellowship. We must all yield to the common good, or we doom ourselves before we’ve taken our first steps.”

Boromir looked at him sharply. “Common good, you say? But it seems that only I must yield! I am to take it on faith that unkempt Ranger is Isildur’s heir. I am to bob my head in acquiescence when the key to Gondor’s safety and the restoration of all that is good is dangled before me, then withheld. And I am to have no qualms about following a dour stranger, a Wizard, an Elvish errand-boy, and four halflings with no skill at arms into the wilds on a journey will likely lead to ruin”

“You have said nothing of the Dwarf.” 

The wry expression tickling the Elf’s mouth only fueled Boromir’s indignation. “He at least will be a doughty companion! He is the only one for whom I have any use at all!”

“Harsh words,” the Elf chastised, though the smile had not quite left his lips.

“I am not a man of words, I am a man of action. And right now I am a man shackled by inaction.” He appraised the Elf from head to foot. He knew the legends of the great Noldor and Sindar who had battled Sauron in an earlier age, those who bore swords and bows and great-axes charmed with powerful runes, who had fought with the intensity of a gale-wind on the Dagorlad, but he saw none of that storied might in the slim creature before him, pleasing though he was to the eye. “At the very least Elrond might have sent a seasoned warrior to stand for the Elves. He might have sent Glorfindel rather than some courier.” Seeing that Legolas continued to regard him temperately, he added, “I imagine his Lordship knows the odds of our success and withholds his strongest men for his own defense, sending hapless children on a fool’s errand!”

Legolas laughed. “If you think I am so young, it is only because your mannish eyes misapprehend me. Your own father was neither blooded nor bedded when I and mine vanquished the Goblin army on the slopes of Erebor and in the ruins of Dale. I have known my share of blood, and I have known my share of honor. I will acquit myself well in the face of the enemy. Fear not on that count, son of Denethor.”

“Oh, I believe there is much to fear when the one sent forth to recall the might of the Elves has acknowledged before the council that his people have failed in their own duty.”

Legolas straightened, and the glint of humor in his eye seemed to Boromir to have become a glint of steel. “It is not for you to pass judgment on that; my men paid the blood-price for the creature’s escape.”

“ _Your_  men? If couriers command armies, it is little wonder Mirkwood is overrun with foul creatures! At least two scions of noble houses stand for the Men of Middle-earth.”

“Think you to cow me with your mortal lineage?” Legolas smile was cold now, and it seemed to Boromir that the Elf had very suddenly increased in stature, and that his skin looked preternaturally bright in the moonlight. “Think again: I am the son of an Elven king, a prince of the woodland realm.

“This news should hearten you,” he said with mocking joy as Boromir tried to disguise his chagrin. But he was of no mind to abase himself with apologies, not when it seemed that the Elf was toying with him. “I am not so great in deed as the mighty Glorfindel, it is true, but I can hold my own.” When Boromir only stood in sulking silence, Legolas said simply, “You must trust Elrond’s wisdom in this, Boromir. You must trust Gandalf’s judgment. You must trust Aragorn’s skill.”

“Must I?” It was a feeble answer, a child’s impudence, but he had nothing else. “I am not without my own wisdom and my own judgment, and as for Aragorn, I have said my piece: Gondor has no king, and needs no king.”

Legolas’ expression shifted only slightly. “Yet you, I think, need less of your pride.”

“And have I reason not to claim it? I have led armies. I have driven back the foe from Minas Tirith and Osgiliath again and again, though the cost be dear.” He could feel his hackles rising, the contraction of his hands into fists. “I have earned the right of pride for my service to Gondor!”

Legolas shook his head. “I do not gainsay your efforts, but I think you have forgotten who you serve. You say you serve Gondor, but if you do, you must in time serve Gondor’s king.”

Boromir narrowed his eyes. “So you believe Lord Elrond, that this man, this “Strider,” is Isildur’s heir?”

“I do,” Legolas affirmed with a solemn nod. “And I know him to be a worthy man.” He held Boromir in his unblinking gaze. “Stewardship may have been your portion, Boromir, but Gondor is Aragorn’s birthright.”

Boromir turned away and crossed his arms over his chest, looking out across the river and the valley beyond. He had never cared that he would not sit a throne; he had only ever wished to secure Gondor’s defenses, to destroy its enemies, and return it to its former glory. A man didn’t need a crown for that--he needed a good sword, and strong tactical mind, and the stubborn nature of one who would not concede defeat-- and he possessed these things. Better still, he had a brother with different strengths: a keenness of intellect, a patient temperament, and a diplomat’s tongue. He had long imagined they days to come when he and Faramir would be held up as pinnacles of Gondorian manhood, when they would lead their homeland out of strife and back into a greatness. And this they would have achieved by dint of hand and will and righteousness alone.

But Gondor was as far from the minds of the Elves as it was from Rivendell in miles; its plights counted for little, and Boromir for less. And truly, his pride could not bear it. The North neither knew nor cared how beset they were, how Mordor’s envoys harried them without ceasing, nor how few truly remained to hold the line.

“If he is indeed Isildur’s heir, then he has forsaken us in our hour of greatest need.” He thought of all the good men lost, and his ire was a low, burning thrum in his blood. “Where has he been while the house of the stewards has fallen to guard an empty throne?”

Legolas shook his head. “It is not for me to answer for Aragorn; I do not know the ways nor minds of Men. His own road has not been easy, and that much I know for truth, for our paths have crossed before, and he is a friend to me, and to the Elves.”

“Ah, yes. A friend to the Elves.” The more Boromir thought on the Elves, their so-called wisdom cloaked in cowardice and inaction dressed as caution, the angrier he became. “You, who are already washing your hands of the affairs of Men, sailing to your cloistered land and leaving us to die unaided.”

“Not all of us will leave this land,” Legolas said. His voice was hushed, subdued. Boromir thought it sounded almost sad. “Not all of us have made our choice.”

“You would forego the chance to join your people in a land untainted by war or strife?”

It seemed for a moment that a bright light flashed there in the night, but it was only a glance of moonlight caught and thrown by Legolas’ lambent eyes as he turned his face to Boromir. “Would you leave Gondor to fall so that you might seek easy comfort in some strange, unblemished land?” There was a subtle pain in those words, low as a song, the keening cry of an arrow hurtling through the darkness. “Middle-earth is the only home I have ever known, Boromir. Perhaps it shall be the only home I ever know. I cannot yet say what my future holds.”

Chastened, Boromir said nothing for a long while. When the silence began to wear at him, he said, “Why else have you come here?”

The Elf’s shoulders rose and fell, a graceful shrug. “Perhaps for the same reason as you, perhaps something other. I found that I tired of stories and music and wished to hear only the songs of the night-choirs: water on stone, wind in leaves, the cricket chorus. These are my kindred, but they are not my people. I, too, am far from home, and facing a great trial.” He fixed Boromir with an unwavering look which cut right through him, sharp and even as a rapier. Boromir could feel a flush stealing up his neck, the sudden tightness of his collar, but Legolas did not blink, nor turn away. If anything, his expression grew more avid.

Boromir himself had never been inclined to seek favors from men, but the heat pooling in his groin under Legolas’ pointed scrutiny suggested that at least a part of him was not indifferent to the idea. He wondered if the Elf had any idea of the fire he was stoking. He could only imagine the diplomatic disaster looming that might come of such crossed signals. He cleared his throat. “Have a care. When one man looks at another in such a manner, his interest may be misconstrued.”

Legolas did not answer him, but tilted his head and slightly narrowed his eyes as if taking Boromir’s measure. Boromir did not know if it meant the Elf had not understood his meaning, or if he were contemplating the implications. He cut quickly to the heart of the matter. “You would incite a man with that look, Legolas, and it would be unwise to trilfe with me this night.” He blew out an uneasy chuckle. “But I suppose an Elf would know little of the moods of Men.”

“If you suppose that, you are grievously mistaken.”

Heat flared through Boromir’s chest and his cock stirred in his breeches. This was not at all what he had expected.

“Do you imagine us cold creatures,” Legolas goaded, his eyes flashing mischief. “Do you think us impervious to earthier appetites?”

Boromir swallowed. “I think nothing, but rely on what my eyes have seen to convince me, and I have seen only that you are a cool and righteous lot.”

Legolas raised an eyebrow. “Then you have much to learn, Boromir.”

With stunning swiftness, the Elf pressed him against the stony ledge and kissed him with startling ardor. Boromir could do little under the circumstances but let the wave of Legolas’ intensity break over him, open his mouth to the Elf’s delving tongue, and breathe in the sweet, clean scent of his skin. He didn’t kiss like a woman--there was nothing coy or tentative in the press of his lips or the play of his tongue--yet this somehow only inflamed Boromir’s interest. His shaft had hearkened instantly to the summons of flesh, and stood rigid and yearning even as his mind pondered the propriety of this action.

When they parted, breathless, Boromir was utterly at a loss for words. Legolas, less so. “Do you still think me cool and righteous?” he asked, his voice a soft and merry whisper. When Boromir was slow to answer, Legolas came at him a second time, nipping at his lips with his white, straight teeth, and palming his hardness through his trousers. His cock jumped at the touch, hot and hard as iron, and in spite of his keen resolve to remain silent, he moaned. Perhaps it had merely been too long since he had been roused, or perhaps it was the strangeness of this unlooked-for encounter, but he was on the verge of spending in his breeks like a virgin youth. He stayed Legolas’ hand to stave off a quick and unmanly end. His fingers closed around the Elf’s wrists, barely thicker than a woman’s. He wondered if Legolas would sing like a woman in his throws.

_Take him_ , a murky voice within him urged.  _Use him._

He shook off the intruding directive. It was only that he was so badly riled, he thought, and it had been so long since his lust had been so inflamed. He was not of that stripe who required cruelty to make good bed-sport. He was  _not_. “Oh, would that we were elsewhere,” he panted against Legolas’ neck, “and not here in the cold, or under the eyes of so many, I would mount you and ride you ‘till you wept!”

Legolas laughed. The sound of it thrilled Boromir even as the subtle arrogance of it provoked him. Yet there was nothing of mockery or malice in the laughter, but rather a lightness of heart Boromir envied. It made the Elf seem both more fell and yet more fey.

“Oh, you laugh now,” Boromir growled, maneuvering Legolas backward until he reversed their positions. “But I assure you, you would not laugh long!” He was of a height with the Elf, but his bulk was greater, and he used it now to his full advantage. “I would wring other noises from that sweet mouth of yours!”

Legolas made a humming sound, and the hairs stood up on the back of Boromir’s neck, as if in warning. “If ever you and are to come together, Boromir-- and it will not be on this night! -- it would not be in that fashion. For I am of the Firsborn, and son of a king at that!” He canted his hip so Boromir could feel the hardness of his shaft against his thigh, as gravid as his own. “I yield to none! Tell me, Boromir of Gondor, are you Man enough to take Elvish steel?”

Inflamed by the challenge, Boromir drew himself up as tall as he could and loomed over Legolas. He tightened his grip on Legolas’ wrist, feeling the bones shifting beneath the flesh. He could crush those sparrow bones, he thought.  _Break him,_  the wicked voice within him growled,  _take what is yours by right!_  He imagined the Elf on his back, legs splayed, writhing witlessly as Boromir drove himself in to the hilt, splitting him like a boar on a spit. As his grip tightened, he could feel Legolas’ determination begin to falter. Was that fear he glimpsed in the Elf’s eyes now?  _Ah, yes!_  His was the mastery!  _I will have what is mine_ , he thought,  _what I am owed_ , and the malevolent wildness he had known in recent nights reared up inside him like a dragon, filling him with thrawn fire.  _Mine!_  the voice hissed.  _Too long has Gondor’s might been forgotten by the Elves, and at their peril! This one I shall make to remember!_  Gods, but his stones were primed to burst! Oh yes, he would show this fey creature what a Man’s prowess could do! He would--

\--In an instant, he found himself on his knees, the stony ground hard and cold beneath him, with one arm driven up roughly behind his back. It took him a moment to realize that the long, fine blade of Legolas' dagger was pressed dangerously at the juncture of his thigh and his crotch. The dark and fiery presence within him seemed to recede, like a fog clearing at a storm’s end.

"’Ware, my friend.” Legolas’ voice was cruel and beautiful music behind him in the dark. “I have sung the whetting-song across this blade a thousand times. Half an inch in either direction and I could geld you, or drain you like a huntsman bleeds a stag.”

Boromir knew it was so. His blood had turned to ice in his veins, his breath threatening to burst from his chest. The violent visions that had roiled in his mind had vanished, yet still he was hard and eager, and Legolas’ body close behind his own threw out heat like a fire. He did not move. "I thought the law of Imladris held that no man should carry weapons," he ground out between clenched teeth. He sensed, though did not see, Legolas’ casual shrug.

"It is custom, and good manners, but not law-- at least for me and my kind. Yet these are dark days, are they not? It seems lucky to me that I chose good sense over good manners."

Boromir’s mood rapidly darkened. Everything about this night confounded and upended him! "You came to me speaking of trust, but offer to geld me in the next breath! You called me a good man, yet you would also deem me a threat!"

"I deemed you a man bent on slaking his own thirst,” Legolas corrected. “You would take what was not offered.” The implication was clear.

“I have never--” Boromir did not finish the sentence, for even as he spoke it, he recalled the vision in his mind, the cajoling voice issuing from the darkest core of his heart which had not seemed to have been his own at all, and for a moment, he knew that though he had not done what the voice told him to do, he might well have-- he had wanted to. It was the same sickening sensation of being a stranger in his own skin that he had felt on the nights he found himself compelled to stalk the halls outside the Halfling’s rooms.

_What is this madness?_  He did not know, and he feared the answer.

“No, I do not believe you have, Boromir, nor do I think you truly wish to. But I see a shadow upon you, and I would purge it if I might, for we have many long miles to travel, and we should not carry any more darkness than we must.”

Boromir shifted uncomfortably. Even still his body demanded release, though his mind reeled from the ease and swiftness with which Legolas had unmasked him. Legolas slowly withdrew his blade, released Boromir’s arm, and rose to his feet. Boromir moved to stand likewise.

“No. Stay.”

The tone of command in the Elf’s voice caused Boromir to reflexively snarl. “I am not some  _dog_  to be commanded--”

Before he could even finish speaking, his head had been jerked painfully sideways and a great weight pressed him down. He reluctantly sank back to his knees. Legolas stood before him now--how could he move so fast?-- one hand twisting so hard in Boromir’s hair he thought his scalp might come away from his skull. The Elf’s blade, though, rested in his belt at his hip, winking a warning in the moonlight.

“I am your better in age, in experience, and in station. I will command you as I see fit, and I will know to my own satisfaction if your word is your bond, or merely wind.”

The night air was heady with the scents of leather and musk and unsated desire. Boromir’s eyes were level with Legolas’ groin, and though he had not intended to look, he found he could not now look away: The Elf was still as hard and hungry as he was. Now that the bane had woken within them both, it would not soon subside.

“I sense a darkness in your heart, Boromir, and if you cannot control it, then I fear that it will control you. You must let it go, this pride and this anger. You must rebuke the shadow. If you are to live long enough to see your beloved Gondor again, you must let it go.”

“But how?” The words rode up through his mouth on a current of despair, and he could not stop the admission that followed. He, too, feared what he was becoming. But what could he do? How much remained in his power to subdue? “It is all around me now, and I fear I cannot master it.”

While one hand still maintained a rigorous grip on his scalp, Legolas reached down and caressed Boromir’s cheek. It was nearly a lover’s touch. The simple kindness of it almost broke him.

“You need not master anything tonight. You need only serve. Heed me, and know that we are on a righteous path.”

Gratefulness overwhelmed him: for once, he felt that he did not stand alone, and that the weight of responsibility had been lifted for a moment from his shoulders. “Tell me what you would have me do,” he whispered. Though he could not bring himself to voice the words, he prayed that Legolas would not loosen his grip, for in that moment, it seemed that the strong hand wending in his hair was the only thing that kept him tethered in the light, and without it, he would fall irredeemably into shadow. Yes, he would serve, he would seek stronger counsel than he had known before; he would own his failings and pledge himself to undertake this journey and all its hardships.

With his free hand, Legolas deftly unlaced his breeches and released his tumescent shaft from its confines. It was longer and of greater girth than Boromir would have credited such a slender creature. Boromir could only stare as Legolas took it in hand and stroked it slowly from root to tip. Knowing now what would be asked of him, Boromir swallowed hard. Legolas pressed the ruddy head to Boromir’s lips. “Suck,” he whispered.

And Boromir did.

He gripped Legolas’ thighs, felt the play of muscle shifting beneath skin. His jaw ached and strained after a time, but still he plied on, tasting the salt and loam on his tongue. Legolas’ breathing became a song to dispel the darkness; where pleasure grew, depravity could only withdraw. The call of shadow grew farther away, its incessant and cruel demands drowned out by Legolas’ keening encouragement, and Boromir thought he might be able to drown it out entirely, if only for the moment, if only Legolas would continue to sing, if only he could stir Legolas’ song-- with his hands, with his mouth, with any part of him that Legolas required.

He gently cupped Legolas’ sack in his hand, felt the stones within draw up tight and hard. Soon the Elf’s gentleness was overwhelmed by pressing need, and he grasped Boromir with both hands, thrusting into his mouth with a daunting rhythm. Boromir imagined how this pale and perfect creature’s face must have looked in that moment, head tipped back, taken in passion, but he could not open his eyes, not while his jaw gaped and his body rode the crest between pleasure and pain. Legolas made a queer noise in the back of his throat and went perfectly still for just an instant. His body stiffened, lightning-struck. Boromir felt the impending burst and drew hard, relishing the moment when Legolas’ stones pulsed in his hand and hot spurts of seed rushed across the back of his tongue and down his throat.

His own body still charged and hummed, though he no longer ached for pillaging and dominion. Legolas had at last released his hair and now stroked his head absently, like a man might stroke a favored hound, but Boromir no longer feared tumbling over some unseen precipice.

Legolas looked down at him after a time. His skin was even more radiant in the darkness now. “I would not have you go unrequited this night,” he said. He grinned and pressed his boot-clad foot against Boromir’s groin, and Boromir groaned. “I would watch you spend now.”

Boromir felt a wave of embarrassment. It seemed far too private a thing, strange to be watched in such an intimate manner.

Legolas took note of his reservation. “You have said that you would serve me; yet you balk at this simple thing. Do you not wish for relief?”

“I do,” Boromir muttered, looking at the dirt between Legolas’ feet. “But I am not accustomed to giving command performances.” All the same, his cock complained incessantly for attention, and if he were truly honest, Legolas’ demand did rouse him in some strange fashion. “I wonder if you are mocking me in a moment of weakness.”

“You have said you would yield to stronger counsel, so heed me now in this: you have a need which must be tended to, and a friend beside you. I do not mock you, Boromir. Not now, not ever. Give yourself ease, friend. Resist the call of pride and serve me in the way that I have asked.”

Not eagerly, and yet not reluctantly, Boromir unlaced his breeches. The kiss of cold air on his most sensitive part sent a ripple of chills down his spine, but he closed his fingers around his shaft and began to pull it, to roll his thumb across the swollen head. Tentatively, at first, and as his hunger overwhelmed him, more instinctively and with less restraint. After a moment, he was no longer ambivalent about Legolas’ presence, and let himself be subsumed by the sensation, the steady tide of seed rising through his root. He was alone with his pleasure, and yet not alone. For once, not alone.

“Yes, Boromir,” Legolas encouraged in a soft whisper. “Show me your pleasure. Let me see you spend.”

The force of his crisis took Boromir by surprise, the sudden shock of blinding of it, the hot rush, the rhythmic spurts of his seed splattering the ground at Legolas’ feet again and again and again, the purging of his weary spirit. It was a greater relief than he had known in a long, long time.

He rested his face against Legolas’ leg, took comfort in the idle touch of the Elf’s hands on his head, took ease in the moment of safety and respite. Boromir knew something then, with more certainty than he had ever known anything before: he would not return from this journey. So often he had gone into battle, each time knowing that he  _might_  die, and yet never quite believing that he actually  _would_. Even when the last bridge to Osgiliath had fallen, and with it nearly every man in the eastern phalanx, even when the cold waters of the Anduin had risen over his head and the weight of his armor threatened to pull him forever under--even then he had not truly believed that he would die. But now he knew beyond all doubt that his death was coming, and soon. And in the spaces left by eroding hopes, despair had crept in, and with it, the darkness.

He barely heard Legolas’ quietly tendered question: “What are you thinking, Boromir?”

He thought a moment before answering, but in the end, he said only this: “I should like to make a good end. I want to die with honor.”

Legolas said nothing, but Boromir could feel the warm, still weight of the Elf’s hands on his head, like a heirophant offering a benediction, and it was answer enough.

“Tell me of Minas Tirith, Boromir,” Legolas asked him when the solemnity of the mood had faded.

Boromir smiled, so clearly could he see the Tower of Ecthelion in his memory. “The White City is beautiful beyond all accounting, Legolas, and its tower glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver. I can see even now ts banners caught high in the morning breeze.” He looked up, saw Legolas’ eyes upon him, and grew suddenly flustered by the lucidity of the Elf’s gaze. “Foolish idylls,” he muttered. “I am no poet; I am merely a man far from home.”

“I can see it in my mind’s eye,” Legolas told him softly, drawing his fingers down Boromir’s cheek. ”I hope I shall see it for myself one day-- and see it returned to its full glory.” His voice had a bright timbre and a soothing sound, and Boromir felt less foolish for having spoken. “Come, Boromir.” The Elf's voice was gentle as a lullaby now. “Rise, and let us seek our beds. The hour is late, and the days that we will sleep soundly and in safety are numbered.”

Boromir stood, and Legolas lay a hand on his shoulder, clasped it like a friend, an equal. “Sleep well, friend. Think on the beauty of Minas Tirith. Imagine her beacons guiding you in the darkness.”

Boromir closed his eyes and allowed himself to smile for the first time in a long while. “That,” he said, “would be a sweet dream indeed.” 

And as the lanterns and chimneys of Rivendell came back into view, they seemed to Boromir less foreign than before, and less frivolous. He felt the slow rise of hope and the strengthening of his resolve. He slept well that night for the first time since coming to Rivendell, with no ill dreams to plague him, no restless wandering, and he woke reinvigorated in his bed. And when he rose in the morning to the cold, clear light of the late Autumn sun dancing across the floor, he allowed himself to believe that he-- that  _they_ \--might at long last prevail.

 


End file.
